The
IoT Marketing Evolution:
Not only is the emergence of IoT revolutionizing the way we see and
participate in everyday activities, it is also impacti

ng the world of
marketing. @DC_Inno outlines some opportunities
to consider.

Rolex
Ranked First, VW Down:
The Reputation Institute has released its annual list of the world’s
most reputable companies, and there are some familiar faces in the top 10.
Rolex made the leap to the top spot, while Volkswagen fell from No. 14 in
2015 to No. 123 this year in wake of its emissions scandal.

Interview
Excellence: Adhere to these 10
crucial steps and you’ll be ready to give the best interview for
yourself, your organization and your brand’s image.

Capitalizing on Cuba: @PRDaily reports how brand managers are setting
their sights
on Cuba after Obama’s keynote address this week.

Friday, March 18, 2016

I got 99 #PR words but PTAT
wasn't one of them. Until this
week, thanks to an Australian firm's new glossary of more than 100 frequently
used PR terms. Find the rest here, with some fun phrases specific to down under. (BTW - PTAT is short for
People Talk About This. I like it.)In the week’s other news, sorry gals,
Cookie Monster is officially off the market. The hungry, hirsute Muppet and his
new lady love Siri were spied flirting and baking cookies together this week in
a new
ad
for Apple’s new iPhone 6s hands-free Siri featureAustin’s
South by Southwest Festival is an annual launch pad for new trends in music,
the arts, business, tech and social media. For those who couldn’t go, like me,
thanks to Social Times for ID’ing five marketing trends emerging from SXSW
including the rise of social messaging over social media, challenges in
measuring “dark social” interactions, and a general trend to less telling and
more showing. Read the rest here.Speaking of
showing rather than telling, Adweek posted a handy infographic with new ad specs for Facebook and
Instagram, a must have for any
professional creating visuals and graphics for social media.Also, Instagram took a timeout this week. Meaning, if your feed started
looking different, it’s because the photo and video sharing site stopped
posting chronologically, and started using an algorithm that curates your feed
based on your top interests. Finally,
graduation gift-giving season isn’t far off. If you’re looking for a clever present
for any Game of Thrones teen fan bots in your life, may I recommend “Oh, The
Places You’ll Snow,” a new Dr. Seuss parody book set in Westeros, with a tongue-in-cheek, rhyming take on how
to navigate a stark future.

Thursday, March 17, 2016

Our client First Alert
has partnered with the Chicago
Bulls to help educate kids about the importance of fire safety! As part of
this partnership, the year’s first “Take Charge of Fire Safety” event was held
this week at the Kroc Center on
Chicago’s South Side. More than 150 kids attended the after-school event, which
featured the Incredibulls as well as Benny the Bull and the Elevators. Special
guests included representatives from the Chicago Fire
Department, who were on hand to demonstrate how the fire engine works and
talk about how kids can help their families be fire safe. Each child who
attended received a gift bag with an educational coloring book, a firefighter
hat and a t-shirt – and a First Alert smoke alarm to take home to their
families. WGN-TV
was on hand as well to spread the word about this great partnership. This is
the first of three events in 2016, and we look forward to more great
experiences in the coming months!

Tuesday, March 8, 2016

Convenient
hours, affordable visits, quality access, short wait times – there are many
reasons why urgent care centers are popular with patients. But while urgent
care is appropriate in a lot of situations, specifically injuries and illnesses
that need immediate care but are not life- or limb-threatening, it’s not always
the best option.

To educate
patients about the differences between urgent care and emergency care, LCWA and
our client the Urgent Care Association of America (UCAOA)
have launched an “Urgency or Emergency” campaign. In addition to conducting
aggressive media
outreach and creating a visual infographic
with compelling stats, we are helping UCAOA spread the word through its social
media channels and member communications vehicles.

An #UrgencyorEmergency Twitter
chat held on March 2nd allowed UCAOA to
engage even further with patients and provide an opportunity for participants
to learn about the topic directly from UCAOA’s urgent care experts. Patients were eager to learn about the relatively recent growth of freestanding
emergency rooms, which look like urgent care centers but charge emergency room
prices.

Friday, March 4, 2016

From the 88th
Academy Awards to Super Tuesday, politics dominated social media. Here are some
of my favorite finds from the Twitterverse this week:

Political Predictions – Did Cisionaccurately predict the Super Tuesday results
using its social media monitoring tools? Not quite, but with nearly half the
states correctly forecasted, it lends some credibility to using such tools to
understand the sociopolitical landscape.

Oscars Drama – #OscarsSoWhite was a top trending
hashtag this week, following the Academy Awards on Sunday night. Despite the
buzz, brands
avoided the diversity issuessurrounding
the show.

#SCOTUS Goes Viral – From House Minority Leader Nancy
Pelosi to presidential nominee Ted Cruz, everyone had something to say about
the vacant seat on the U.S. Supreme Court following the untimely death of
Justice Antonin Scalia. In just one hour, President
Obama’s tweet on the topic had more than 3,000 likes and 2,000 shares!

Politics [Not] In
Print – A recent
survey conducted by the Pew
Research Center revealed that the majority of Americans have learned about
the 2016 presidential election from broadcast outlets and social media.
Newspapers, however, were ranked near the bottom.

Trump Card – Presidential nominee Donald Trump
is crushing his rivals on social media. Regardless of users’ political stance,
Donald Trump is taking over social conversations with hashtags such as
#TrumpTrain, #NeverTrump, #AlwaysTrump and #Trumpertantrum. Many political
commentators think Trump’s social campaign may be the reason for his staying
power.

Wednesday, March 2, 2016

Ourclient AAAHC is a leader in ambulatory
health care accreditation in the United States, but globally they are known as
Acreditas Global. The Acreditas Global brand reaches beyond U.S. borders to
help hospitals, ambulatory surgery centers, medical centers, dental care
providers and emergency care centers globally certify their commitment to high
quality health care standards. Recently, Acreditas Global celebrated its first
reaccreditation and LCWA was called in to help generate buzz for the Peruvian
cancer treatment center that achieved the milestone: Aliada Contra El Cáncer.
Working closely with our Public Relations Global
Network partner RumboCierto in nearby
Chile, we coordinated Spanish media coverage of the milestone in Peru, as well
as English articles in U.S. based trade health media. The result? A celebration
felt by accredited organizations, patients and health care leaders in multiple
countries and increased awareness for our clients AAAHC and Acreditas Global.